The Experiment
by David Knight
Summary: Faith agreed to a single meeting with the Director of SHIELD. What she got was far more than she expected or could have ever dreamed. (Sequel to The Super Soldier and the Slayer)
1. The Offer

**Author's Note: This story takes place right after the events of the Super Soldier and the Slayer.**

 _ **Disclaimer:** The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to their respective owners._

 **The Experiment  
Chapter One: The Offer**

Faith looked out the window of the helicopter, at least she tried too, Phil wasn't lying that she wouldn't be able to see out the window. It didn't put her mind at ease, despite the fact she had prior warning. She had no idea where they were heading or if there was any truth to the purpose of this little trip.

But when she was escorted out of her building she was quick to notice three parked cars around the block, all identical to the one she had been put in. That all but screamed that despite her voluntary capitulation could have been not so involuntary. At least that was what the suspicious part of her mind concocted up upon seeing the type of chaperon she had for herself.

You don't get this kind of escort unless you are going somewhere secure, or they do know exactly who she is and what she is capable of. Another worrying sigh that made her paranoid mind think up a swath of possible scenarios that she could be falling into.

Whoever this Director was, he wanted to meet her. As well as make sure she reached him, willingly or not. You could call her paranoid or even a little crazy, sure she volunteered to come, but that didn't change the fact she was with some shady special ops group. Her compliance might have just made their jobs easier.

The Helicopter lurched slightly and came to a stop, she looked around for a second not knowing what just happened. It was impossible to tell if they were in the air or not, day or night, the only thing she was certain was they weren't doing barrel rolls through the air.

"We've landed, let's go." Coulson said, answering her internal query, he rose from his seat and opened the door.

"Wow, were here already? I didn't know it was that close." Faith said, but those words died in her throat when she noticed the airfield she was in, old and abandoned.

It would seem that they had gone a little further than she thought, and the fact she had no idea where the hell she was at the moment, only made the idea of retracing her steps harder. As far as she knew there were not many air fields in this state, neither did she suspect there were any barren deserts as well.

 _Where the hell did they bring me?_ Faith thought with some dread, really regretting coming with these guys without putting up at least some sort of resistance.

"This is a pit stop, we are going somewhere a little more remote," Phil replied, he hadn't even stopped to say that as he moved for the waiting jet.

The guy was bipolar or something, when he was on the helicopter, he didn't move a muscle or say a word. Now he didn't even seem to want to waste a single second he had to either stretch or stand around, she wondered if he was going stir crazy and this little walk was what he needed to fight off the hour flight they had where he just sat there doing nothing.

Faith didn't know what to expect when getting on the plane, to be knocked out came to mind, but why wait to do that here and not in the Helicopter? Enclosed space? Nah, that wouldn't be smart to do that, even on a plane, it would be too tight. Maybe they were waiting for something with a little more head room? Like maybe a massive abandoned air field in the middle of nowhere? Can't get anymore open than that.

 _Who knows,_ Faith rolled her eyes at her own sardonic thought. She was quick to take in the surroundings though, being a slayer and raised in some violent places often gave you a keen eye. This gave her a chance to scope the area out, see what little details she could pick up about where they had landed and are going to depart in the next few minutes.

As she walked behind the balding agent, Faith noticed that there was nothing else nearby, no waiting cars or even people standing guard. This place was definitely only a pit stop, and more than likely she could retrace her steps here and find nothing to say these guys had been here. Smart that was, leave no identifiable trace of their arrival or departure.

"I think on things too much in my older age," Faith grunted. Sometimes she missed the days when she just needed to act when something happened, not think they were just going to attack. Who knows, maybe they were the nice secret intelligence organization.

 _Fat chance_ , her more cynical side countered, while deep down her more accepting side did agree.

As she stepped up the stairs and into the plane she found it to be a clean and well furbished interior. It definitely had a very nice set up, a small bar off to the side with an assortment of drinks available that you could probably make every single type of cocktail known to man. Lacey would have liked seeing this, she mused.

As she passed the bar she found someone waiting for her, sitting in one of the two leather seats with a table between them, a bald African American man. He looked up at her with his only eye, the other scarred one hidden behind a black eye patch, and even then she could feel the intent behind his stare.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lehane," Despite his words his expression did not openly convey any positive charm or emotion, just words that came out of the stoic visage of the man before her.

"And I can assume you are the Director of SHIELD," Faith replied, taking in the older man's appearance and body posture, rigid and well-guarded, this guy was definitely a spy.

"Nick Fury," His hands unclasped, gesturing to the cup filled with a darker liquid in front of her. "Care for a drink?"

"Is it drugged?" Faith asked.

"It is, it has a harmful narcotic that will knock you on your ass," Fury replied, straight faced. "It's called Ethanol; you need to drink it a few times for it to kick in, the bottles there if you're feeling brave."

Faith smirked at that, she didn't know what he was playing at, but damn after three sentences she was starting to like this guy. Spies that she dealt with were tough necked and often annoying, but Nick Fury seemed to make the spy game seem fun.

"Maybe later, like after you've told me what you want with me?" Faith replied, keeping her eyes Fury, looking for anything suspicious or deceitful, she doubted it would be that easy, but you never know. "I know Riley, and despite our problems I doubt he would rat me and B out to some shady intelligence agency."

"No need to worry, I have been aware of you two for a while now, several years in fact, but we only got the full story on you when we brought Riley Finn into SHIELD." Fury replied, his face still serious as he looked at her, although it appeared more relaxed than before.

"He's an agent of yours now?" Faith asked, wondering why Riley would hook up with these guys, wasn't he trying to have a calm life with his wife right now.

"For a few years. He is the team lead on Project WAND, leading the division in supernatural countermeasures and assessments." Fury replied, completely straight faced.

Faith blinked, she didn't know if she had heard that right, but she felt the need to ask. "'WAND'?"

"Wizardry Alchemy Necromancy Department." Fury replied, his face nothing but a mask of indifference.

Faith stared at him for a few seconds, his face not showing any amusement or annoyance. It was by far the most stupid name she had ever heard, she got the SHIELD name down and that remotely made sense, this however rolled off the tongue like… something that didn't roll of your tongue.

"Seriously. What is it with you spooks coming up with words for these crazy acronyms? Does it make you feel smart that you get to make a name sound cool?" Faith said, showing some sarcasm as she looked at the man, wondering if she could get a reaction out of him.

"Officially WAND doesn't have a listed acronym. It's something we came up for in house," Fury responded, not showing an ounce of caring at her statement. "It fits its broad scope, which the field of occult deals in. Over the years SHIELD has come across things that can't be explained by our normal standards, that don't fit into the knowledge of gifted individuals and more into the occult, which is discredited, until they actually do something."

"You mean like running into a vampire, I bet that kinda changed your opinion," Faith said with a smug smirk at first, only to let it go somewhat when seeing him glare with the one eye. "Hey, Phil's killed one. I can only assume you've done the same."

"That... and the fact that we came into possession of the records from another organization that had been created by the United States Government shortly before World War II called the DRI. They had extensive knowledge and dealings with the supernatural, though it was very much the dark side of it, hence why they were named the Demon Research Initiative. In their final years of operation, they were simply known as the Initiative."

That got Faith's attention as even though her experience with the Initiative had been brief, she got the whole story later from Buffy and the Scoobies. To think that SHIELD had their files for years and never made any moves at all. It was either that they did not see them as a threat, or it was that they had only decided now they were going to make their move. Either case made her nervous, one showed that the Slayers were not up to their league to be noticed, or dealt with, the other meant that the status quo on leaving them alone had changed.

"You can call it dumb luck or fate, our two worlds have never truly intersected much, save for a few isolated incidents. But even then there hasn't been much to go with other than who and what was involved," Fury stated, passing a file forward over to Faith, she looked inside and found one of the missions pertaining to Buffy.

It had information on her when they were starting out in rebuilding the Watcher's Council as their own, listing of a few of their safe houses in England, Spain, France, the United States. They even had some of their fronts listed, Sanctuary being one of them. Faith was both impressed and a little worried, SHIELD did have tabs on them, but always at a distance, and they always never knew they were there.

"You've been busy," Faith said, looking at Fury.

"We have been keeping track of you since the destruction of Sunnydale, after all we keep track of people of interest as well as potential threats," Fury stated.

Faith could understand that, but the fact that they had been in the cross hairs for so long scared her a little, these guys had their sights on them for so long and they had no idea. "How long have you been following us?"

"Years. Not long after the destruction of Sunnydale, the files from the Initiative came into my personal possession," Fury replied. "Once I verified the contents of the files, decided I needed some _inside_ help."

"So you recruited Riley," Faith assumed.

"That's right, I contacted Riley Finn and his wife not long after these files came into my possession. Understand, this was something we had almost no idea on, I don't like that one bit," Fury stated, letting that emotionless face slip to show some displeasure. "While I couldn't devote a large number of agents to work an area that was considered 'fringe', I saw the need be prepared in the event things got out of hand."

"So they signed up, just like that?" Faith replied, she doubted it was that simple.

"The Finns themselves at the time had falling out with this 'Demon Hunting Unit' that the US Army was running as a way of mopping up the Initiative's mess. I brought the two into SHIELD, offered them resources and a mobile base of operations to do better. WAND functions as a subsection of SHIELD. Its members are considered as SHIELD agents and officially they are, although they are kept mostly off the grid to avoid unwanted eyes wondering why we are researching the occult."

"It just so happens that in addition to have the cover job of doing normal spy crap, you have Riley keeping his eyes and ears out on what happens during your regular missions that could be something that ventures into our territory," Faith realized. It was smart really; anything that SHIELD came across that it didn't know they would pass it down to them for handling, and since they were the only ones handling it the records would only be known by them.

"You say it's your territory but you really aren't a Government sanctioned organization," Fury stated, and before Faith could make a snappy comeback he beat her to the punch. "And don't give me any bull about the Watcher's Council. You may have rebuilt the council in name but it nothing like the Council of old. You may have better intentions, but it is still a group full of Gifted individuals."

"And there you go saying that word like that again. Gifted," Faith said, noting how 'Gifted' sounded of importance, and usually when a secret government group saw something important that was often bad for those that were important. "There a reason why you are saying that?"

"As much as you may think you know the world, it's even bigger and stranger than you think," Fury responded. "There are people out there with powers and abilities that normal humans can't understand or can't deal with. SHIELD seeks to protect the public from this world and keep it in the shadows as long as possible."

"Not that easy though is it. I mean it's not as if you have a score card," Faith half joked, yet noted Fury's look. Her jesting dropped as her eyes narrowed. "You have one, don't you?"

"It's called the Index," Fury confirmed. "It's what we use to keep track of Gifted Individuals, people with powers that we know of who could be a threat."

"And I'm on it," Faith growled, a very sneaking suspicion that it was true.

"You, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenburg and about a dozen or so Slayers and magic users we've identified over the years. The world can be a dangerous and unpredictable place, I am sure you know that already," Fury stated in a calm tone.

"We're not a threat, we have never been," Faith snapped, annoyed that she had actually started to trust these guys and they seem to not be sharing it, well trust was a strong world, she distrusted them less.

"It's true. Buffy Summers has never been a threat. A number of the Slayers you have recruited, like Kennedy Collins, Violet Hart, Lacey Davidson, are people that we could have nothing to fear about," Fury acknowledged, however had a point of his own. "Yet, we are well aware that not everyone you bring happens to be stable. And even then, we have reports of young women possessing the same gifts as Slayers and some of them have history with violence, criminal records, and even acts of domestic terrorism. That is a very serious thing, especially if you are harboring those types of people."

"That may be true, doesn't mean we turn our backs on our own people," Faith countered. "Not everyone we find is a good person, but we try our best to make sure they won't become a threat to normal people. We rehabilitate the ones we can and we deal with the Rogues, on our own because they are ours."

"Yes, you handled Sasha Deveraux just fine on your own."

Faith flinched when she heard that name. As bad as Faith had once been, Sasha was worse. She actually believed herself to be above humanity and that they didn't need to protect them. She took Faith's old teenage philosophy of 'need, want, take' to extreme levels. What was worse, she managed to get other Slayers to think the same way and brought them under her banner. While it wasn't a huge number, losing over a dozen of their sister Slayers to that silver tongued sociopath had been a very bitter pill to swallow. She had been a very charismatic and devious individual.

"For nearly two years she operated across Europe, engaging in illegal activities, spreading chaos around like it was an art form," Fury stated, rising from his seat and then looming over Faith, making her appear to be a child that had done wrong.

"We handled her," Faith stated, defending her organization and their actions. "We put her in the ground when we knew she wasn't going to stop."

"But she didn't go quietly did she. Innocent people died in the middle of your little civil war. The fact you let it get out of control so bad and let them get the run on you only proves that you cannot do everything," Fury stated factually, making Faith growl at the statement.

"We have protected the world from the shadows for years and asked for _nothing_ in return! We are not the bad guys here!" Faith defended herself and her fellow Slayers, rising from her seat and glaring at the man. "Sure we got problems and we may be the only ones handling it, but we are still doing it. This isn't a fairy tale where everything works out when the one bad guy is done for, there's a lot more out there. And I intend to be the one helps to take them all down."

"And are you just doing this to try and make up for when _you_ were the villain of the story?" Fury responded, even when the Slayer was inches away from him and ready to pounce his face remained unchanged as he made the cold and blunt statement.

That put Faith in her place as she froze, seeing that even as she had reeled in her anger, Fury had been calm throughout. She should have expected it, that he would know about her past and the things she had done. How much was another matter, but if they knew what their organization was doing, then there was no telling how much they knew all up about the people in it.

Not long after she broke out of prison to save Angel and after the fall of Sunnydale, she was worried that she was going to be looking over her shoulder or have to leave the country altogether. When the federal marshals tracked her down in Cleveland, she had assumed that she would be sent back to prison.

Instead, to Faith's surprise, she had been told they were there to teach her how to function in witness protection. Before she could say anything, she had gotten a call from Angel, who as she learned only a day earlier had taken over the LA Branch of Wolfram and Hart. She had already been planning to go down and talk sense to him before the marshals came.

It was then she learned that part of the deal he made with the senior partners was to ensure her own safety from law enforcement. 'Officially' Faith had witnessed something rather damning in the prison she had broken out of and had been in fear of her life. She 'agreed' to turn states evidence against 'certain individuals' when the case came to trial. In return, the federal government gave her the identity of Helena Prentiss.

Faith tried to talk him out of it, that she doesn't want him to fall on the sword just for her but Angel assured her there were other reasons why he had taken over the LA branch and that she should do what she had been doing, even in prison: making amends for past sins.

And so she spent nearly nine years living in public as Helena Prentiss, only able to use her real name in front of her fellow Slayers or those that she felt she could trust. Using her real name with Steve, that had been a rare occasion. That she could just be herself instead of just remembering to use the name Helena instead of Faith.

All because of the stupid mistakes of her youth.

Mistakes that she wanted to make sure the new girls didn't make. If she could keep any of them from becoming another Sasha or even when she had been part of the darkside, then it would be worth it all for the girls. They even kept… _Our own damn records._ Faith let out a sigh, closing her eyes in defeat. _Can't be that angry about being put on a list when you make one yourself._

"I see you understand, but let me clarify for you a bit more. The Index's main purpose is so that we know who and what we are dealing with, for the potentials of what happens if someone does switch sides," Fury replied, after all I have people on it that are part of SHIELD, do don't get too worried. "I am certain while you don't have an Index like ours, you have at least evaluated and keep track of the hundreds of Slayers that you have found. Even the ones that haven't joined your organization."

"I'm not giving you our list," Faith said after a long moment.

"I wouldn't ask for it," Fury returned, taking a seat and motioned for Faith to do so. "But I do think if we are to avoid having a repeat of Sasha happening ever again, then it's time we begin to have contact between our groups, or more specifically yours and WAND."

"And what," Faith began as she took a seat opposite of Fury. "Do you plan on me to do as a liaison. 'Cause honestly, I found the whole idea laughable when I first heard it."

"I believe that there is a change coming," Fury said gravely. "That the world as we know it will no longer be the same. The first sign I had of this change, a certain man in a flying suit of armor."

Faith said nothing, only nodded. You had to be living under a rock to not hear about Tony Stark or Iron Man, depending on your preference of titles. Andrew nearly had a heart attack when seeing video of the suit. It was probably the nerd's greatest dream ever.

Trying to replicate it had been a pet project of Andrew's but no way he was ever going to get it. B had put her foot down when his attempt at trying to find a magical power source to try and mimic the hand blasting ability caused a significant explosion. Andrew was good at out of the box thinking, but trying to build his own Iron Man, definitely out of his reach.

Still, it had some worried that they would be seeing armies going out and strutting out armors like they were the latest fashion trend, given that the playboy was originally a weapons designer. Fortunately that hadn't happened, yet, but it was something the supernatural community took notice of. In the first month after Stark showed out of his armor, there was a massive demon clan that had in their heads that this was humanity's great weapon against demon kind and they need to kill the humans first. This demon clan had a particular vulnerability to iron weapons, hence their need to strike out.

Thankfully, they had gotten wind of it and the Slayers managed to eliminate the clan before they kill a lot of people. But what if they hadn't? That was something Faith didn't want to ever have to think about.

"Change is inevitable, Lehane," Fury continued, looking at her with a resolute expression. "I'd prefer to be ahead of the curve. I believe that now is the time SHIELD, through WAND, and the Watcher's Council should start to have an accord. But this accord will not work without a party that both sides can trust. Someone to work back and forth with both sides to ensure an honest and true partnership."

"And you trust me?" Faith asked him. "You only know me from files and accounts from other people. I just met you."

"I've spent the last few years getting to know you, Buffy Summers and the few others from your group that we have on the Index. I know what you did, the people that you killed when you went rogue…" He let that hang there for a moment, just so she could be reminded of the past. "And I believe that your actions since your prison break out are for a genuine need for redemption." He pushed over one of the folders on the table that was between them. "Enough to offer you this."

"And what exactly is this?" Faith asked. Fury said nothing, only motioning for her to open it. Shrugging, she did, seeing her face on the first page. It read like a police file, mentioning when she had been arrested for being naked on that bus when she saved those nuns the night she had been Called. But everything else, all of her crimes. They weren't there. "Seriously, what is this?"

"Your life returned to you," Fury answered. "You become my liaison and you will no longer have to live under the identity of Helena Prentiss. Faith Lehane will be a free woman without a criminal past."

Faith stared back at Fury with disbelieving eyes. "You… you can't be serious. You can't possibly have that kind..."

"I am the Director of the most clandestine intelligence organization on the planet with near unlimited resources," He said as a matter of fact, and looking at her as if she had somehow insulted him. "Erasing your criminal past from record is something that I can do thanks to those resources."

Faith fell back into the chair as the implications hit her. She had just about resigned herself to having to hide who she was in public for the rest of her life. It was an alright trade off in her mind for her past sins. She was still in a prison of sorts. But this…this sounded just too good to be true.

"What is the catch?" She asked after the longest of moments.

"The catch, as you put it, is that in order for this to work and avoid my superiors know about your people, you will have to become an official member of SHIELD, attached to WAND."

 _And that is one hell of a catch,_ Faith exhaled. She worked well with their own organization because she had helped in a bit in the building process, of training new recruits. But the idea of joining an agency like SHIELD as an official member. And working under Riley, did he even know what Fury was offering to her right now she wondered. "... I'm going to need to think about this."

"I'd be concerned if you didn't," Fury replied. "But for right now, what do you say to a consultation?"

"Consultation for what?"

"I have a facility that I'd like to bring you to," Fury explained. "There's something I'd like you to take a look at personally."

Faith thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Why not? Might actually help me in making up my mind whether or not trust what you say." She took a moment before speaking. "I just gotta ask, why bring one of us in now? Was it really the timing of running into Steve by chance?"

"Well, I really wasn't expecting you to run into Captain America," Fury replied.

"So he really was ex-military. Figured that much," Faith said. She noticed the amused look on Fury's face. "What?"

"When I said you ran into Captain America," Fury said getting up, taking a folder to give to her. "I wasn't kidding."

Faith gave him a disbelieving look until she opened up the file. She saw Steve's name at the top but then she saw a page with two different pictures, labeled before and after. The before page being a scrawny looking guy and the after was Steve as she knew him.

 _You have got to be fracking kidding me!_ Was the thought that was running through her head over and over again as she started to read the file on Captain Steve Rogers.

* * *

Fury smiled, enjoying her dumbfounded expression as he walked to the front of the cabin, finding Phil there. "Pilot is ready to take off whenever you are, Boss."

"Tell him he has authorization to take off. I want us to be at Pegasus within a few hours," Fury stated.

"Understood," Phil nodded, noticing Faith's seated figure, being very rigid. "What did you say to her?"

"I told her she ran into Captain America," Fury said with a half-smile. "If she wasn't interested before, she is now."


	2. The Reaction

**Author's Notes: This is a shorter chapter than the last but no less important in setting things up for the future. I'm grateful for the response I have gotten so far and hope that this chapter will spark more interest. This will likely be the last update for this story until 2019. I hope you all enjoy it.**

 **Disclaimer:** _The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to their respective owners._

 **The Experiment  
** **Chapter 2: The Reaction**

Faith looked out on the long endless desert landscape that seemed to stretch on forever before ending at a horizon that only just allowed the mountains to peak over the edge. It made her wonder exactly where she was. If things went sound and she had to leg it out of here she had to have an escape route, right now she had no idea which direction was best to run towards.

 _Everywhere leads to the ocean, just one way may take longer than the other_. Faith thought to herself, before she reminded herself to go West in case, she was sure that was the closest coastline for the state she was in.

But then she realized that she had no idea which state she was in, or what damn desert she was in. That could make this a tricky thing to handle, go West or East. Damn, she should have really paid attention in geography when she had the chance. Just another part of her youth that she regretted, not learning something valuable.

"Any reason why we are taking a jeep instead of a helicopter to your super secret facility?" Faith asked, looking to her fellow passenger, who sat opposite of her.

"It's because it's that classified and that I'm bringing you in off book that I can't afford to bring you via the helipad," Fury explained.

"Budget cuts?" Faith asked.

"No, I just don't like paperwork," Fury replied with a drawl. "And people tend to yell at me when I do something they don't like."

 _Damn, he does it so well that I think I am starting to like him_ , Faith thought, the guy just knew how to pull off the deadpan so well, it was an art form in his hands.

"Is it your mother?" Faith joked, trying to be cute about it.

Fury just turned his head to look at her, giving her the usual bland emotionless one-eyed stare that would make anyone feel awkward. But she was a Slayer, and that meant absolutely nothing when it came to awkwardness, intimidation and hostility it helped, but not awkwardness.

"Please stop looking at me," Faith asked, her voice picking up slightly that she was not very comfortable with him looking at her like that.

The ride remained silent for the next forty-three minutes and eighteen seconds; although she had no idea if that was the exact time as she had only done it out of boredom since they were not talking much. It weirded her out how these guys had remained quiet for two hours and not say a word to one another, how could these guys deal with it? They didn't even have the radio on.

"Oh god I am dying here," Faith groaned, shaking her head before dropping it into her hands. "How do you guys do it?"

"We zone out and think of our favorite Backstreet Boy." Fury replied, as if he wasn't even listening.

"Wait, really?" Faith asked, she couldn't help to see if it was true. Not getting a response, she turned her head to Phil, who was driving. "Coulson?"

"Honestly I prefer the classics. The Vienna Symphony is spectacular if you ever get a chance to listen to them," Phil smiling slightly as he looked in the rear vision mirror. Faith decided that it would be prudent to look out the window for a while.

And when she did, she noticed it, the light in the distance and the structures she could see in the darkness. She could make out the field of large satellite dishes behind the arrays of buildings that sat on the raised-up plateau. Faith looked on and saw a helicopter circling the skies and several cars doing the same, while towers lined the outer perimeter.

 _The hell?_ Faith thought to herself, this didn't exactly look like some kind of secret facility. "What is this?"

"This, as you so eloquently put it earlier, is my 'super-secret facility'," Fury replied, just as the car moved into a tunnel just outside of the perimeter, a group of guards allowing them access. "Welcome to Project PEGASUS."

Faith remained silent as they moved deeper underground and towards a bay station about a mile in, as she looked around she noticed that there were more guards. She quickly weighed the situation and prepared to remember her way back to the entrance if she needed to.

"Come on," Fury said, opening his door and stepping out.

Faith followed his lead and stepped out, looking around at the simple dull grey walled tunnel before she trailed after the Director. She moved with him into the facility, with Coulson right behind them. Passing security personal and a few others, she noted that while some had SHIELD emblems on their shoulder's others had NASA ones.

"What is this place?" Faith inquired.

"Research site," Fury replied. "For the artifact that I brought you here to see."

Faith did not know what kind of place this was but she did notice a plaque or two around, all of them saying the same thing. Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility. It would seem that this place was one of those high-tech scientific research bases where they look into alternative energy sources or something like that.

"Director," Faith turned to see a woman with dark hair in her early thirties walk forward and hand him a file, only sparing a brief glance to the Slayer.

"Agent Hill," Fury greeted in turn. "What is the status of the chamber?"

"Main staff has been sent off, paid leave and off time for the rest of the week. They seemed skeptical," Maria Hill replied, walking in step with the Director.

"Why? I'm a nice guy, can't they see I let them off because they have been working hard," Fury replied.

"Sir, they thought you were firing them."

"Sounds like something I might do, better keep that in the book for a later date." Fury replied, giving off a rare scoff as he moved deeper into the facility.

Faith however had to trail behind the two, Coulson was by her side, while three guards brought up the rear, it was a little odd for her as she felt like a third wheel – or seventh wheel in this case. It was strange really for her to be here, it was completely alien that she would be allowed into a secret facility like this. Even with her reservations and suspicions she did not understand why they were being so trusting of her presence that the two people ahead of her did not seemed concerned.

Even the guards seemed at ease with the escort.

"Well Miss Lehane, we are in luck. The man leading the project is spending the weekend with family. And the night staff is off on vacation, courtesy of my good graces," Fury stated, not glancing at Faith as he spoke, but the way he said it and what was stated earlier showed that he was the one responsible for them not being present. "It won't be that hard to get into the lab without anyone making a fuss."

Faith did not reply; instead she just followed as they led her deep into the bowels of the facility. Down an elevator and a few stairwells, they eventually arrive at the deepest section of the base.

When they entered the lab, Faith was expecting perhaps something ancient, something that would simply scream out demonic to her, considering how she got roped into this. After all, with every past experience she had always been stooped and surprised by what she had found, and she was surprised, but for the opposite reasons.

Instead, all anyone in the lab seemed to be looking at or taking readings on, if she saw from computer screens, was a single blue cube like object.

For a moment she just looked at the cube. It looked like an ornament you put on a wall or desk. A cool looking ornament she was sure, but come on, there was no way this thing could be what she was brought here for.

She stared at it for a few moments, looking as it swirled and pulsed with energy.

"... Seriously?" Faith mumbled out, looking to Fury, with skepticism in her eyes.

But her skepticism was only met with a cold impassive stare; oddly enough he beat her own gaze with only one eye. Has she not been so dumbstruck she may have made a joke about it. Scratch that, even if she had not been dumbstruck, she would have held her tongue. This guy did not like jokes.

"This thing? It looks like something I'd buy in a glass art store," Faith said, before moving slightly closer and looking at it, the swirling inside the cubic structure. "Or a boring lava lamp."

"That thing is called the Tesseract and it nearly cost the Allies World War II." Fury replied, his tone became quiet and dark as he mentioned it, turning and walking around said object that he claimed to have been an instrumental object in the decisive victory of the World War.

Faith let her shock show openly at Fury's statement, knowing by the grim tone of his voice that he was telling the absolute truth. After all he had said things a lot less serious, like national security, end of the world, his favorite Backstreet Boy without a single alteration in his tone. So, if that alone was anything to go by than Fury was quite serious about how big this thing is.

Yet for some reason she couldn't help but not understand what it was, or how it could have been used by the Germans.

"What is it?" Faith asked, taking a step back as she looked it over.

"This object was found and used by an organization known as Hydra, think of it as Adolf Hitler's supernatural research division," Fury stated, giving Faith just enough information to get the idea behind the object. "Hydra's Founder, Johann Schmidt later known as the Red Skull, found it in Europe and with the assistance of a scientist by the name of Arnim Zola created rudimentary energy-based weapons as well as hyper advanced machinery that even today we couldn't replicate."

He stepped in front of Faith, looking her straight in the eye.

"Were it not for Captain America, the Red Skull would have not only conquered Europe, but the rest of the world too," Fury stated factually. "Well, after blowing it to pieces that is. The man wasn't what you would call stable. Suffice it to say his presence and that of the Cube could have been the end of our way of life, as well as most of the human race."

"Well that certainly wasn't in the history books," Faith said in a subdued voice, although she attempted to maintain an air of indifference. "So, what exactly are you expecting out of me then?"

"The Tesseract comes from Asgard," Fury replied, tapping onto a console nearby and revealing several images and videos of an incident in a small New Mexico town. "Home to a dimension of godlike beings modeled after figures from Norse myth. Based on our reports and the debriefings we got from the scientists that he was with during one of these gods stay on Earth, it seems that their race uses Science and Magic, claiming they are one and the same."

Faith smirked to herself and let out an inaudible chuckle, shaking her head, she knew what they wanted.

"As of late, we have been unable to cause any form of reaction from the object. We are hoping you could change that. We want you to see if you can either cause it to react to your presence or see if it does use what you deem to be magic."

"That's it?" She asked, getting a nod from the Director, before shrugging. "Well at least it's not hell gods. You would have the wrong Slayer then. You mind if I actually touch the Cube thingy. I can't really tell anything from a distance, touching might help."

"Then go ahead." Fury replied, before he told her in a deceptively calm and slow tone. "Just be careful."

"I know, you're watching me to make sure I don't make off with the Cosmic Cube," Faith replied, raising her hands up in mock surrender, but come on, what the hell would she do with it?

"Tesseract," Fury amended.

"I like my name for it better," Faith smirked as she made her way over to it, scientists making sure to monitor the situation.

Standing in front of the object she felt some tension well inside her, for good reason. She was about to touch something that seemed to be the greatest thing in the damn universe and she was going to play with it. That was so going to blow up in her fact. Steeling her nerves and giving her arms a shake, she slowly reached for the cube.

She put her hands on the Tesseract, her palm resting along the side of it, unable to actually pick it up as it was fastened into some kind of device.

As soon as she touched it however, she felt a warm sensation move through her hand. It got warmer too, but that was probably as far as it got. It would seem that the Cosmic Cube, her new favorite name, was no more magical that a waffle iron.

What was she expecting? A massive surge of power, a portal to open and a demonic army appears. As far as she could tell this thing wasn't supernatural at all. In fact it didn't do anything but make her hand start to sweat.

 _Well, this was a waste of… why is there energy coiling around my arm?_ She followed the strange coils as they moved along her arm, moving along her skin and making her hair stand on end. It was then that the Cube started to brighten, as well as get a bit hotter and then her arm started to hurt. She could hear the scientists around her, chattering wildly about this being the first real spike the cube had given off.

"Oh, please do not let this blow up in my face," Faith muttered, closing her eyes and actually praying to anything out there not for this to end with her getting blown up.

Those were the last words Faith said before the Cube's energies engulfed her entire body for a second or two. Then she was violently cast back, she flew all the way to the other side of the lab, and through a work station or two before sliding to a halt.

But it was not only her that was affected. Alarms went blaring, as the people in the room recovered from the sudden concussive explosion that occurred. Everyone had been thrown to the floor, disorientated and blinded from the intense light. As they slowly got back up, the small shockwave that followed from Faith coming into contact with the Cube began to dissipate as the energies around the Cube retreated within the square object's interior.

Coulson was the first get to his feet, having been furthest away from the shockwave. As he stood he looked around the chamber, surveying the damage and looking for any casualties. He could see everyone had been knocked off their feet, not many were standing back up too quickly however.

"Director, are you alright?" Coulson said, rushing over to his superiors' side.

"I'm fine, Coulson," Fury groaned as he allowed Phil to help him up.

"Well you wanted a reaction," Phil remarked. "I'd say you got it in spades, boss."

"You're telling me," Fury replied, his eye going towards what he saw.

An unconscious Slayer, laying on the floor face down and almost forty meters away from where she stood a few moments ago. He saw the rest of the room was in shambles and that the scientists were all still recovering from the sudden spike.

"Go check on her," Fury ordered, motioning towards Faith, he raised a hand to his earpiece. "I need medical teams down here. We have injured personnel in the containment chamber."

Phil was already at the Slayer's side, kneeling down and checking her pulse. A wave of relief hit him to feel that her pulse was strong. She was down but not out.

"She's stable, so far as I can tell, but I think we'll all be better off once we've had doctors give her a clean bill of health," Coulson called out, watching as Fury helped Agent Hill to her feet and then moved to get the rest of their personal up and about.

"Amen to that," Fury agreed.

It wasn't long before their backup arrived. Medical teams and Security flooding the room, they moved to those who had been hit and looking for the threat that caused the disturbance. Fury motioned for Hill to deal with the Security; she nodded before moving off to get them to stand down. "I need to know what her condition is as soon as possible and if she can be moved."

Fury had kept her visit out of the books; anything regarding her acquisition to her arrival was simply a myth. He would keep it that way; anything that causes problems for the project would get the World Council breathing down his neck. The fact he sanctioned bringing the girl here and also allowing her to interact with their most heavily guarded artifacts was a big no-no in their books.

Anything relating to this would need to be kept under wraps tightly, he couldn't let anyone get wind of this and cause problems for them. After all, if they realized she had been here and caused a reaction she may be detained and with the way her organization acts he did not want some damn war to start.

"On it, boss." Phil said, motioning for a medical team to help him.

"Tell me that you have something. Is the Tesseract functional now?" Fury turned to one of the scientists, who were fiddling with their computers to see what they had gotten. Most were glitching and unresponsive from the sudden outburst of energy.

"I don't know sir, it appears to have returned to an inert state, but we did pick up a massive buildup just before the explosion." One of the support staff spoke. "We had about three seconds of power fluctuations that went off the scales. Quite honestly, we have no idea how to explain it."

"How did she get a reaction out of the Tessaract?" Another scientist asked.

"Classified as is my visit. There is to be no record of our arrival. Wipe all the data in this time frame after you transfer it to this flash drive," Fury ordered, handing them the drive, one took it after sharing a sidelong glance with his colleague.

"Director." Phil's voice brought Fury's attention back to him, and he saw the stunned look on his face. "You need to see this."

Fury moved forward and knelt next to the woman. He didn't see any sort of anomaly to make note of, until they opened one of her eyes. He saw that it had changed color, no longer brown, but a deep blue. Almost glowing, as if it was some kind of star or…

The Tesseract.

Fury got up slowly and quickly took stock of the situation and the course he needed to take. Would be hell to pull off but he had no choice but to do it, anything less and the consequences could spell doom for SHIELD.

"As of this moment, this is a Level Ten Operation. All of you are to speak to no one but me or about any of this," Fury called out. "You will all be eventually extracted from Project Pegasus with the correct cover stories and will be transferred to a facility of my own designation. There you will be given new assignments; you will not be informed until after you take your new posts. Let's get to work people!"

Fury watched as the room went into meltdown as people went about the order. Only he as the Director of SHIELD could authorize a Level Ten Operation. The contents of said operations could only be viewed by him alone, could only be accessed with his personal approval. It would give him the security that he needed to proceed with the necessary cover up of this event.

He was glad Selvig had gone to visit family and the majority of the staff was sent away. A couple of support techs left to monitor the Tesseract in case of unexpected activity and a few security personnel. Easy enough for him to relocate to wherever he would be moving Faith now. Had it been when Selvig or his main staff were here, he wasn't sure he could manage to keep absolute secrecy. Or allow them to be reassigned, this team was hand chosen because of their experience and to lose them in any way would be a blow.

Even if they had never been able to garner a reaction from the Tesseract.

But Faith had, she had done something no one else had been able to achieve in nearly seventy years. That in of itself spoke volumes of the monumental event of today.

And Fury wasn't going to let anyone else find that out until he learned what exactly that meant.


	3. The Response

**Author's Notes: I wanted to get this chapter out before Endgame premieres tomorrow. I know we are all looking forward to this culmination of a decade's worth of storytelling. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.**

 **Disclaimer:** _The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to their respective owners._

 **The Experiment  
Chapter Three: The Response**

Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the incident at Pegasus. To be honest, Coulson was surprised by just how fast they had been able clean the slate after the event. All evidence had been collected then destroyed, staff that had been present during and after the incident were either being moved to new projects or were put on leave until they could be transferred somewhere else.

It was a mess at first, over twenty people had to be immediately removed from the Project and transferred. Little to no reason given, for all the secrecy a Level Ten Operation granted, it was hard to think that this would go unnoticed for long. It was the greatest irony of a secret clandestine agency, despite no one knowing what goes on inside the organization, a lot of people's heads turn when something happens.

When their most secret project so much as sneezes there a lot of people wanting to know what made it do that. No one was good enough to hide something like this, the Tesseract reacting after nearly thirty years of inactivity, from the higher ups. They may be bureaucrats, but they were perceptive when it came to certain things that they had invested money and manpower into.

If they wanted to, they could probably find out what happened, no one was good enough to hide something from them. They had oversight on nearly everything SHIELD does, including Pegasus and Phase 2. Sneaking something by them is unlikely, as well as ill-advised.

Then again, his boss was Nick Fury. That alone made him a master sleuth, with or without the title of Director of Shield stapled just before his name.

Said Director was currently standing behind the glass window, looking on at a comatose Faith Lehane. The Slayer had equipment hooked up to her to monitor her vitals. "Of all the scenarios I expected to happen once I brought her in, this was not one of them."

Coulson said nothing. No one could have predicted this, it was a long shot that anything would have happened. The Tesseract had been touched by enough people over the last seventy years and nothing even remotely close to what happened to Faith had happened with them. While the Tesseract entering an active state certainly was a major event for the project, it was also something that would cause problems for them in the future.

The World Security Council had a lot of interest in Project PEGASUS and they would want to know exactly how things are going. Especially if the Tesseract actually reacted to something, that meant revealing Lehane's presence. Something that was best not allowed to occur.

The sound of the door to the room sliding open brought his and the Director's attention, seeing the doctor come towards them. It was Doctor Jackson Streiten, one of the best doctors SHIELD had and someone that Fury could trust completely to maintain secrecy. As soon as Fury had begun the cover up, he had contacted the good doctor at Bethesda and had him 'take some time off' in order to arrive under the radar. "Doctor, how is she?"

Streiten had a concerned look on his face; given this man was a renowned doctor and surgeon to boot, with a success rate of ninety two percent, seeing him concerned did not bode well for Faith. "Honestly Fury, sometimes you expect me to drop everything I'm doing when you need to bring me out for one of your off books assignments."

"Hey, I didn't want her on that table. Things happen, Jackson, you know how this goes, not everything goes smoothly and sometimes people get hurt." Fury returned in a collected tone, although he did let out a breath. "But… I definitely wasn't expecting this to happen. What is her condition?"

"Well no one _expects_ anything to happen," Streiten replied, shaking his head before beginning his report. "Your consultant is observing all of traits of a coma patient. Her heart rate and brain activity are all within range of what to expect of a young woman of her age and the fact that she's breathing on her own is a positive sign. But I am not getting anything to tell me that her condition is worsening or improving. This wasn't caused by head trauma. This is the body going into a coma on its own, we just don't know what caused it. Apart for waiting for the results of her blood work to come back, all we can do is wait and see."

Not the best prognosis, but it was all they got. Better than knowing that she was dying, although that was not off the table yet if she didn't wake up anytime soon.

"I don't think all we can do is wait," Maria Hill stated walking in with a folder in hand. "I just finished speaking to Dr. Florence. He has readings from the cube that pertain to our situation with Lehane."

Dr. Florence was their newest junior researcher for Project PEGASUS, having recently been transferred here after the previous junior researcher got transferred off the project. A few off handed comments here, some rumors there and everyone was left to wonder why so many people were not being transferred into the project.

It was an interesting little strategy, keeping a secret by making it appear to be a myth or rumor. Twenty people get transferred out of Project PEGASUS? Make it sound like something horrible or crazy happened and everyone will start spreading stupid rumors around. Rumors can be bad at times, but the thing was, after a while people tend to rationalize things and those stupid silly rumors often get thrown out.

Being part of a clandestine organization often gave people a bit of insight into espionage, specifically what kind of clichés come with spy work. Most people write off those silly 'everyone died' in some event here, or they were 'sent to another dimension' there sort of stories and eventually it is all forgotten.

"How so?" Coulson asked.

"He's fairly confident that when the cube reacted, it emitted gamma radiation." Hill answered, presenting the report to Fury.

"Gamma radiation?" Fury questioned, giving a cautious glance over his shoulder to the comatose Slayer. "Do I have to be afraid that our consultant is going to be going off the rails and going green on me? Or blue? Or any color in the visible spectrum?"

Hill shook her head. "Florence assures me after comparing the data we have on file for Banner's work that the emissions are different. If anything the radiation from the Tesseract is less harmful than the radiation that Banner was exposed to and more importantly, a fraction of what Banner took in."

"Yet Faith was at ground zero of the reaction, and it had an effect," Coulson argued. "Even if the rest of us are fine, it did something to her. Her eyes were _glowing_ with the same energy as the Cube, something has happened."

"Yes I checked that. I didn't notice any luminescence but her iris color seems to have changed. I only realized the change when I checked her file. What that means is entirely up for speculation, but me and my team will continue our observations," Straiten stated. "But you need to bring in a specialist Nick. I can help in making sure this woman remains alive, I'll do my best, but if her body does reveal to have been changed by gamma radiation, that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse."

If the effect had not been harmful to Faith, such as causing radiation poisoning, then there was the possibility of some form of mutation. While not as similar to Bruce Banner, it was possible that there could be some underlying effect the radiation had on Miss Lehane. Despite the length of time they had held it, the Tesseract was still an unknown object that could do almost anything. Who knows what those energies could have done to her.

"Not to belittle them but the two scientists we pulled out of PEGASUS do not know much more about gamma other than it being a type of radiation." Maria added. "And I hate to say this sir, but you can't remain here much longer. You have a meeting with the World Council in less than twelve hours at the Triskelion.

Fury had a lot on his plate at the moment, this little internal cover-up of their required his near full attention to pull off. Keeping everything moving along smoothly so nothing got leaked was vital, along with moving pieces around so no one saw them being moved was just as equally important.

A Level Ten Operation required his full attention, it was not easy to pull off when you had other things to do. And usually he could do it with little to no oversight or resistance, so long as the World Council knew, but he couldn't let them know. So, he was stuck with the dilemma of staying and trying to find an excuse as to why he couldn't meet with the Council which would likely never succeed. Or go and risk this Operation becoming compromised.

"I'll handle this boss." Phil said, deciding to give Fury an easy way out.

"You sure about this Coulson?" Fury asked, raising a brow. "It hasn't been that long since that last assignment. The way that ended—"

"This isn't the same," Coulson said curtly, as he didn't want to focus on the TAHITI project any more than he ever needed to. "This is alien technology we are dealing with, not biology. We brought her into this. I owe to myself to make certain she comes out of this in one piece."

Phil may have been ordered to bring her in, but orders went only so far, and in a way, he had been the one to drag her into the mess personally. Culpable or not, he did not feel right leaving here without at least knowing she was going to be alright. If he could stay on he would to keep the Operation going and see to it that Faith recovered.

Fury looked into his right hand man's eyes and nodded. "Alright then. It's your show. Is there anything I can do to help before I get shot into my own personal hell with the Council?"

Phil cracked a smile at that. "I'd like Agent Morse reassigned to me for the duration of this Operation. We've worked well in the past and once she's been reassigned, we can send her after our specialist."

"You already have someone in mind?" Maria asked.

"Well you did say Dr. Florence compared the radiation against the Banner file," Coulson mused. "Since we obviously can't get the man himself, what about his partner?"

* * *

 _Eight Hours Later_

 **Chicago**

Betty shook the man's hand, the last one of dozens she had to shake since the end of the conference. It had only finished half an hour ago but she was reluctant to stay for the party after, not something she usually reveled in as of late.

"I thank you again for coming, your research on radiological treatment is quite intriguing, I would hope to hear more another time."

Betty smiled pleasantly, even if she knew that the man now shaking her hand was twenty years her senior and also obviously trying to come onto her. But it was one of the many unpleasant realities of being a woman in the scientific field and apparently caught the eyes of men.

"I plan to be in New York and Dallas in the coming months, planning on actually getting funding for my research. You can drop by anytime." Betty knew he wouldn't, being a director of a Hospital and also staging the events in Chicago such as this conference wouldn't afford the man much free time.

At least she hoped he wouldn't.

"I'll be sure to check my schedule, have a lovely night miss Ross."

As he man walked away so did she, turning to the nearest exit and making her getaway. Staying too long in these places just made her more uncomfortable, and with how her life has been over the last two years she didn't feel ready to socialize with some of the upper echelon of the medical world.

After her position in Culver was revoked, she was forced to find new supporters for her work, hard to do as she had to hide the reasons for her departure from her previous benefactors. After Bruce's episode at the college she was held responsible, by association, while she was not openly accused or punished for her action there was a silent conversation had that saw to her removal from the university.

She didn't blame them, not when they were merciful enough to let her leave without incident or blame. But it was a bitter pill to swallow when she was forced to leave and fight to keep her work alive. The only reason she was able to keep working on these lectures and going to functions was because of her severance. But that was running out.

If she didn't find a steady salary or find a benefactor for her work than she was in trouble. She couldn't let this happen, not after all the years of hard work she and Bruce put into this project.

"Excuse me, Miss Ross."

Betty jerked in surprise as the greeting, turning to see a woman standing behind her. Casually dressed, but the way she stood reminded her of all those military friends her father had. This woman was a soldier.

"Yes, can I help you?" Betty asked.

"My name is Bobbi Morse, I am agent from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Bobbi greeted, she didn't make a move greet her any further, and Betty felt no need to reply. "I was sent here to ask for your assistance. We have a situation that you are perfectly skilled for."

Betty had no idea what they wanted, but she did not actually care. "I am not interested." she said, turning and reaching for her keys.

"Listen, I am not with your father."

"The fact you say that, only tells me you think the reason why I won't help you is because of him. You're wrong. The reason is that I know who you are," Betty replied. Someone from SHIELD had been approached by someone from this organization before by an agent named Sitwell. In the wake of the Harlem battle between Bruce and that monster, she had been approached to see what she knew regarding her former fiancé and his condition. She didn't reveal much, having little to no trust in the people who were looking for Bruce.

"I don't think you do," Bobbi replied.

Betty stopped for a moment, looking back at her.

"We know where Bruce Banner is," Bobbi said, that had actually taken Betty by surprise. "At least my superiors know, we have known for the last year and a half where he has been."

Betty wanted to know if he was alright, if there were any problems and if he was coping. But she kept her mouth shut, showing interest might look back on her part and could be the thing that makes them promise something that she didn't think she could refuse. Even if she doubted the people who were offering it to her.

"I can't tell you anything, I don't know anything, but my superiors do. But they need your help, and if this isn't about Bruce how about helping out someone who needs help," Bobbi said. "We have a woman that is unconscious and experiencing symptoms we have no idea how to predict, and it came from something that emits gamma radiation."

A thought quickly came to the forefront of her mind, the idea of another person becoming like Bruce was terrifying. Even worse is if they transformed into what Emil Blonsky turned into. Bruce at least could at least return to being a human being after some time, but Blonsky was stuck in that gamma mutated abomination and how much of his sanity he really had left was debatable in her mind.

She wanted to say no on principle, to wipe her hands clean of this and not have to deal with anymore shady government organizations. But a nagging feeling stopped her from immediately ignoring the request, that maybe there was someone that needed help and she could offer it. Call it a moral compass guiding her down the right path or even sympathy for a woman that was likely going to suffer the same fate Bruce did.

"I suppose there is no one else then?" Betty inquired. "No one else you can ask."

"Not that I know, they told me it was important we get you to help us." Bobbi answered, giving a shrug.

"So, you got a team with a black SUV waiting nearby to shuttle me off to some facility?"

"Sedan actually," Bobbi replied. "Besides it is just me, they sent me because they thought I could convince you."

She was quite bold, especially when saying it aloud.

"Usually people like you don't speak this openly," Betty said.

"Considering that you don't like being kept out of the loop and had to deal with shady stuff all the time I thought that you would appreciate some honesty." Bobbi replied, giving a shrug as she stated the obvious. "Kind of why they sent me as well, I am a bit of a straight shooter."

Betty could tell, it made her wonder if they had planned this out. That they had read her profile and understood how she thought and acted. It wouldn't be so hard to believe, considering that they are a agency that deals in the spy game. Which was reinforcing her belief that they knew her a little too well because the next thing she asked was something she chalked up to being flattered by her honesty.

"Okay, tell me about this girl."

* * *

In his office at the Triskellion, Fury was feeling exacerbated by the World Security Council. Their almost constant push towards weaponizing the power of the Tesseract and to further develop weapons using that power, as Hydra had done during the course of World War II.

 _Like that's what this world really needs. To have everyone stop buying guns and ammo and go straight to disintegration weaponry,_ Fury said to himself. Gideon Malick, the current head of the WSC, was the one driving this push. He was also the one that helped to kill the Avengers Initiative before he could truly bring it together.

He understood the need for oversight; no one person should have too much power without checks and balances in place. But more times often than not, the Council made some of the most asinine decisions he had ever heard of. Trying to pin Harlem on the Hulk and clear Emil Blonsky so to use him as a SHIELD weapon. The once distinguished soldier had to Fury proved with his actions be every bit the monster inside that he become on the outside. There was no way he'd allow someone like that to be free and about, even if he would be 'technically' under his 'control'. Phil had had a unique way of dealing with that situation, sending Tony Stark to talk to General Ross as the one giving the offer. The 'talk' that happened was explosive to say the least. Stark really had a tendency to rub people the wrong way which in that case had been a blessing.

Still, with the Council's collective desire to gain Tesseract-empowered weaponry, Fury knew he was right keep Faith out of sight; especially after the reaction. Fury was only of a handful of SHIELD personal, active or retired, that knew all of the details of an certain event in 1995; an incident that would change his entire career trajectory and with him becoming Director. Meeting Carol Danvers and everything that followed until she left Earth had been the single most incredible event in Fury's life. He learned not only that aliens were not simply science fiction, but he took part in a conflict between two different species, in space.

As much as he could remise about that golden period, the reason Fury thought about it was because how Danvers got her powers. Back in 1989, She had been attached a test pilot to Project Pegasus, back when the project had been trying to develop a light speed engine, capable of faster than light travel. What no one realized was that Doctor Wendy Larson, the leader on the project, was actually a renegade Kree operative named Mar-Vell, chose not to follow her own government's plans for genocide of the Skrull race. Her engine used power that she had been able to somehow siphon from the Tesseract, a feat that no other scientist could replicate, much less had become aware of it.

After the Kree found out, they shot down the jet Mar-Vell and Danvers were on during a test run. They killed Mar-Vell, intending to take the engine but Danvers shot engine causing it to explode, and the resulting energy washed over her. Now been being transfused with Kree blood after the Kree took her back to Hala and brainwashed the amnesic pilot that she was a Kree Soldier could have also played a factor but Fury was certain that Tesseract energies were what gave Carol Danvers her powers.

There was no telling what Faith could have gained, even if she had a fraction of what Danvers possessed, it would monumental. And if the Council ever learned of it, they would stop at nothing to push at human experimentation under the guise of defense of the planet.

Fury was shaken out of his thoughts by the sound of his secure line ringing. He picked up the phone. "Speak."

" _What the hell have you done, Director?"_

Fury frowned, having recognized the tone. "I don't appreciate your tone, Finn."

" _And I don't appreciate being run over by my boss and yet here we are,"_ the current head of WAND spoke, the frustration and anger Fury could clearly tell in his voice yet he managed to keep him tone as calm as could be. _"I've tried for well over a year now to get you to let me open up dialogue with the Watcher's Council, to contact Buffy openly so we can start sharing Intel and coordinating missions to deal with the kind of threats SHIELD wants nowhere near the press. You shut me down every single time I brought it up, and yet in a split second you choose to pick Faith Lehane of all people up off the street?"_

"You are the one that vouched on her character, stating her need for redemption was genuine," Fury stated. "Are you stating otherwise?"

" _My personal feelings regarding Faith have nothing to do with this,"_ Riley countered. _"You chose to go behind my back to grab Faith to fly her out to Project Pegasus and according to Coulson, the moment she touched the artifact you have down there, she's fallen into a coma!"_

"There was no way to know this would happen," Fury said. "I have the best people already on the case, making sure Faith will recover."

" _I don't think you realize how combustible the situation we are in now is Director,"_ Riley responded. _"Unless I tell Buffy and explain what you have done before she find out on her own, they will assume worst case scenario and begin searching for Faith. The moment they find out find out what happened, I can assure you the resulting chaos will draw far more exposure to both of our organizations than we wish. But they won't care about that. Faith is one of them and they never leave a Slayer behind."_

Fury frowned again. Riley wasn't wrong about his assessment. The last thing any of them needed at this point was exposure. The Slayers started poking around, the more of chance the Council would get wind of the incident, regardless of how well he had covered things up. He took another minute before making his decision. "Make contact with Miss Summers. But under no circumstances do you reveal where we have Faith. You may know your ex better than I do, Finn. But you know jack about the Tesseract. Believe me when I tell you, we've only just scratched the surface of what it has done to Faith and it's going be a long while until we learn exactly what he has done to her."

* * *

 _She felt herself falling through the darkness. Nothing but an endless sea of darkness._

 _How long had she been falling for, she could not say. Time seemed to have no meaning here._

 _And then suddenly, where once was black, there was only white. It lasted for a moment but once it passed, her eyes could see again more than just an endless blackness._

 _Now she could see stars that burned bright against the darkness of space. Worlds hanging there in the void like rare jewels. It was something she had never even seen before._

 _But when it came to jewels, her attention became drawn to six colorful lights in the horizon. Lights that grew closer the more she felt drawn toward them and could see they were not stars but gems. Raw, unrefined in shape, but she could simply feel the power behind them._

 _It was more than she could have ever imagined she could feel from anything._

 _But even then, she moved away from five and continued towards the blue stone. Like a moth to a flame, she was drawn to it by instinct. She held her hand out, trying to touch it, wanting to touch it._

 _And then…_

* * *

Slowly, Faith opened her eyes and found herself staring at the ceiling. The room itself was very white and bare, save for one wall that had a long panel that reminded her too much of a one way mirror. Her eyes narrowed as she came to one possible conclusion on her present situation. "I better not be a prisoner."

" _You aren't. You are however in isolation."_

Faith turned her head to the source of Coulson's voice, finding his image on a monitor. _"Sorry about the circumstances, but given what happened, we thought it best to have you moved to another facility."_

"Another facility?" Faith repeated. "You mean we aren't in New Mexico anymore?"

" _Not at all. We did bring you to Pegasus under the radar. Director Fury had to work fast in order to cover up what happened."_

"Seeing as how I'm alive, I didn't blow the place up. How bad was the damage?" Faith asked as she tried to sit up. "And where is Nicky anyway?"

" _To the facility none; the reaction knocked all of us off of our feet and rendered you unconscious for the last four days,"_ Coulson answered her. _"Unfortunately, Director Fury had to return back to headquarters to handle affairs of his position, less we let people know about what we were doing with you."_

"Four days?!" Faith exclaimed, putting a hand to her temple. She was glad she had set the reset on her check in counter for an entire week after meeting with Fury on the plane, not to mention telling Lacey that she was going to be out of state for the next few days. The last thing she needed was having a war between SHIELD agents and Slayers over her. There were a few things she needed. "Where are my clothes Phil? And my phone?"

 _"The clothes you were wearing to Pegasus were taken away for examination and your phone was destroyed."_

"Excuse me?"

 _"You were at ground zero of the reaction and even if it hadn't been smashed by the way you fell, the circuits were fried. And with the energy that washed over you, the doctors believed it best to not have the contaminated clothing remain on your person,"_ _Phil explained._ _"There is a bag with some clothes you can change into."_

Faith let out a curse at that news. That meant she had three days to make the call, and this time she'd have to actually contact Buffy. _I can just imagine the speech she will give me for acting 'impulsively and without thinking of the consequences'._ While they were certainly friends now, they both had their own approaches to dealing with situations like this. If it had been B in that hotel room instead of her, she would have probably told Coulson no. She had been burned one too many times by government agencies.

Still, the Spartan white room had her feeling somewhat anxious. "Want to tell me why I'm in isolation anyway? I'm not sick Coulson."

" _Director Fury ordered you placed in isolation due to the fact that when we got to you, you exhibited physical changes."_

Faith blinked hard. "What do you mean physical changes?"

" _Your eyes were glowing blue, Faith,"_ Coulson stated. _"Tesseract blue."_

Faith turned around for a moment to look at her reflection in the mirror, and felt relieved that her eyes were her normal shade of brown. "You sure about that Phil?"

" _I understand your eyes look normal now, but back at Pegasus they were glowing. Once we had you here, Director Fury had his own personal physicians attend to you. Dr. Streiten found your eyes to be a non glowing blue when he examined you. It wasn't until six hours ago that your eyes returned to their original color,"_ Coulson explained. _"So I am hoping you can understand why we are keeping you in isolation. In the near seventy years that the Tesseract has been in Government hands, nothing even remotely close to what you went through with the artifact has happened."_

Faith stared back at Coulson's image. "I agreed to help you look at the Cosmic Cube as a onetime consult. In no way, shape, or form did I ever give permission to be a lab rat."

" _And you aren't,"_ Coulson assured her. _"But it is our experience that when something alien goes all 'wacky' as it did, things happen and they need to be observed. I promise you Faith, we will not keep you any longer than need be. I have a specialist in looking at the results of your blood work. She'd like to speak to you when you are ready."_

"Specialist in what exactly; alien artifacts that go nuts?" Faith asked, refraining from rolling her eyes. She would have thrown another jab if not seeing the serious expression on his face. "What aren't you telling me?"

" _When the Tesseract reacted as it did, it emitted gamma radiation and since you were at ground zero, you got the full dose of it,"_ Phil said, even as he saw Faith begin to go pale right after hearing the words 'gamma radiation'. _"You don't have radiation sickness. All of your results so far don't show any signs of it so we may have gotten lucky but this is why I flew in a specialist in gamma radiation. I want to make certain everything is being done to clear you Faith."_

Faith just sat on the bed then, finally able to breath after hearing that bit of news. _Okay, maybe spending a few days in this place won't be such a bad idea,_ she said to herself. As if a terrible joke, she suddenly heard her own stomach growl. "Well if I am going to be here now for a while, can I get some food brought to me?"

* * *

Riley had a bad feeling about this, it was usually how he felt every time he would have to meet up with his old flame. More times than not, it never ended well, for either of them. Usually there would be a few words said, an argument erupted and both leaving on bad terms.

He usually felt bad about it afterwards, and he liked to think that she did as well, if only to make it easier for himself to meet up with her next time with less hostility. Didn't always work, but there were a few moments that they could walk away from one another without much fanfare. Usually a shake of the hand and with a smile on the face, sometimes even a pleasant good bye that promised the next meeting would be just as nice.

As rare as that may be.

Today he was thinking he was going to be suffering through the former.

Faith and Buffy had history, lots of history. Good and bad, sometimes a lot worse. But these last few years, as Slayers working side by side, they were thick as thieves and very protective of one another. As much as Buffy spoke about never leaving a Slayer behind or abandoning their people, her close circle of friends were different from anyone else in her organization.

Take one of them, put them in a coma and lock them up in isolation with no say on where she is and why than there were going to be problems.

"Riley."

He looked up, surprised for a moment, standing there was Buffy. Noticing the frown she wore he knew she wasn't in a good mood, she was already looking for Faith and having no luck. This meeting was definitely going to end with words said.

"Hey, good to see you Buffy," Riley said, he tried to school his emotions and try to do this like a professional.

Sad part was that no matter what kind of man you are, when you meet with your ex-girlfriend to talk with her about her lost friend that you know where she is and how she is doing, things were going to be uncomfortable. Something he knew that she would pick up on the instant she looked at him, let alone when he spoke.

Buffy did notice, and now she was both curious and annoyed, she took her seat in front of him and leaned forward. She wasn't here to mince words, she wanted to hear what he had to say. "Okay. What's going on Riley? Out with it."

"… I need to talk to you about Faith, and why she won't answer the phone when you call her."

The moment he said that, her eyes narrowed and any levity she might have had evaporated. "Explain. Now." she demanded in a tone that offered no avenue of escape.

* * *

Faith stared at the plate before her. An actual choice stake, mash potatoes and carrots with glass of water. All under in under an hour. "You must have some sort of chef on hand."

" _Actually I cooked it myself,"_ Coulson replied. He smiled seeing Faith's surprised expression. _"Spend enough time on your own and you learn cooking for yourself helps to keep your body in better shape than eating from your favorite fast food takeout. It's rather basic, but it's good basic."_

"Hey, I don't mind at all about the food choice," Faith replied good naturedly before holding up the plastic utensils left for her. "But seriously, couldn't you just give me real silverware."

" _Isolation protocols state not to let you have any metal objects within your grasp until you've been cleared,"_ Coulson stated. _"We're following protocol to the letter, Faith. No exceptions."_

Faith shook her head in annoyance. "Seriously Phil, I am not going to try to escape or hurt myself. Don't you think you could give me a real knife to cut this stake with instead this plastic crap that won't…" her words trailed off when she noticed his stare wasn't on her, but rather what was in her hand. Her eyes traveled to the plastic knife in her hand.

Only at the end of it there was a two inch 'blade' only this was made of blue light. As if in a trance, she took the knife and with the 'light' part, cut into the stake on the plate, as cleanly and easily as if she had a steak knife.

Looking at the reflective wall, she could see herself and saw her eyes were no longer brown but in fact blue. Dropping the knife in surprise, she noticed her blue eyes turning back to brown and the energy blade on the tip of the utensil faded away as if it had never been there to begin with.

Phil looked back to Faith with a startled look of his own. _"Well, that's was unexpected."_

"Yeah," she agreed still trying to believe what had just happened.

" _I'll get someone down there to take that plate away so we can have it analyzed. For now, I don't think you should be holding on to any instruments."_

"And get someone to get me some chicken fingers and fries. I think I'd like some finger food after that," Faith muttered. If she had any doubts before, this erased them all. Something had happened to her, something that made her a possible danger to others. Who knew if this was just the beginning? "So what do we do from here?"

" _After you eat, I'm going to check with the team to make certain you can actually leave isolation without causing contamination,"_ Coulson stated. _"Once that's done, we should have you meet with Dr. Ross and have her begin running tests to understand what has happened to you."_

"Okay, good. Let's run tests," Faith started to say. "But if we are going to do this, and I'm going to be here for the foreseeable future, then I need something from SHIELD."

" _What?"_

"I am going to call someone from my organization's tech team and you're going to bring him here. You can do your whole spycraft thing so he doesn't know the location."

Phil frowned at that. _"You can't ask us to bring an unvetted_..."

"Fury brought me into this!" Faith snapped. "He got me to go to his super secret facility to look at the Cosmic Cube and I got knocked on my ass, exposed to gamma radiation and who knows what else is happening to me!"

" _We never expected any of this to happen."_

"I know and I am the one that agreed to go in the first place so no one is to blame," Faith agreed. "But Fury wants to prove to us that he wants to work with us instead of against us, then this is his sign of good faith. You need to let me call my people and let me bring someone else into this. You either do this Phil, or by the end of the week, you are going to have Slayers magically appearing through portals to break me out of here."

" _They wouldn't even know where to look,"_ Coulson refuted.

"Remember how I said I sent out an alert on my phone. One I sent again but for a longer duration when we went to Pegasus," Faith said to him. "If I don't resend that page from my phone with the correct update, Willow find everywhere that phone has been and have teams run down every location. How do you think _that's_ going to end?"

There was silence between the two speakers for a time before Faith let out a sigh. "Phil. I trusted you enough to accept your offer in my hotel room. I understand something has happened to me. Something that could affect my fellow slayers if I don't figure out what that something is. But they are going to need assurance to know I am alright and this is the way to do it."

"… _who exactly do you have in mind?"_

Faith simply smirked. "He's unconventional, to say the least."

* * *

Of all the ways Buffy thought she would be dealing with any of her ex-boyfriends, the idea of strangling him with her bare hands was nowhere near the list.

But at least Riley could understand that was what she was thinking as she taken to using the cloth napkins at the table they were sitting at and twisted them so many times they were hanging on by a thread.

"I can see you are upset," Riley began to say diplomatically only to stop when seeing the dagger glare his ex was sending him.

"No Riley, I think you know me well enough to know when I'm upset," Buffy said with a deceptively calm voice. "This is beyond being upset. You've been working for years behind my back running a new Initiative."

"WAND is nothing like the Initiative," Riley returned, steel in his voice as he defended the unit he had spent the last five years building from the ground up. "There are no dissections; there are no experiments on supernatural beings to graft them to human bodies or any other inhumane work. Hell we don't even go hunting like the DHU did after any signs of demonic activity. What we do is keep our ears to the ground and anything that doesn't seem to be a typical human scenario, we investigate and we deal with. Like that hive of demon parasites in Morocco three years ago."

"What are you talking about? I dispatched Leah to deal with that threat when we received—" Buffy stopped as she realized now how too easily they had picked up the chatter about the hive. She hadn't given it much thought, chalking it up to her people doing their jobs efficiently. She narrowed her eyes to Riley. "How many incidents have you 'dropped a dime' to me over the last few years Riley?"

"A few," Riley admitted. "As much as I trust Fury for giving me full control of the division, there are just some things that shouldn't be put into a lab to study. Adam made that lesson crystal clear for me. What you and the new Council do, you can handle this in ways we can't, but you and your Slayers can't be everywhere Buffy."

Buffy let out a sigh as it rankled her to admit to that. It still stunned her how she was basically leading all of these people. Ten years ago she would have never believed it possible. She tabled her inner debate to the side as she looked back to Riley. "Regardless of your boss's gag order, you should have gone behind his back and told me about this the last time we saw each other two years ago."

"Maybe," Riley allowed, "But I don't want to take the chance of WAND falling under the command of someone without my experience. Sam is the only one in the division even close to understand it like I do and she's my wife."

Buffy shrugged at that. It wasn't that she didn't understand, but it wasn't her problem. What was her problem, was the Director of SHIELD had plucked Faith off the street and was being held in some secret facility and he had smartly not told Riley the location because had he known, there would be no way she'd let him leave without telling her.

Before she could continue to give it any further thought was interrupted by her phone getting a text message. It was from an unregistered number, but the message sent was enough. She dialed back the number and waited for it to pick up.

" _I'm glad you decided to call back."_

"I'm glad you chose such a ridiculous code phrase. 'Real vamps don't sparkle'," Buffy replied, allowing herself to relax somewhat hearing Faith's voice.

 _"You will not convince me otherwise that the 'vampires' in Twilight aren't doing that,"_ Faith defended herself. _"Worst portrayal of vampires ever, considering we know what they are **really** like."_

"You will get no arguments from me on that fact," Buffy allowed herself a small laugh. "Now that I know it's you, tell me where you are so I can get you extracted so I can have a long talk about all the things you should have done before getting on a plane with strangers."

" _Can't B,"_ Faith said in a tone that Buffy knew she was being deadly serious. _"and please no speeches about how impulsive and reckless I can be."_

"Gee you think I would have gotten point across by now," Buffy replied bemused.

" _Listen to me. I can't leave B."_

"And why the hell not?" Buffy asked.

" _Aside from the fact I got exposed to gamma radiation, I'm having episodes where my eyes are glowing neon blue and apparently I can manifest blue energy at the end of a knife."_

There was a long, awkward moment of silence after hearing that piece of news. It took her a minute or two before she could even ask the question. "Yes or no. Are you dying, Faith?"

" _No,"_ Faith assured her. _"Once they knew about the gamma they checked me to see if I was radioactive and I came back clean and that was less than twenty four hours after I got exposed. I spent the last four days in a coma and physically I am fine and not showing any symptoms of radiation sickness. They just let me out of isolation begin tests to find out why."_

Buffy remained silent, though Riley could see how tightly she was gripping the phone. "You know there is no way I am going to leave you there alone without reassurance. I don't care, Faith. Slayers don't leave each other out in the cold."

" _I've already explained that Phil, and he's a good guy for a spook B. Think you might actually like him,"_ Faith said with some amusement in her voice. _"But I told him if they wanted to prevent all out war, I wanted someone specific from our side to be your assurance."_

"And who prey tell do you want?" Buffy asked.

" _Well. Where is Andrew right now?"_

* * *

Riley started wonder just how bad things were. He knew Faith was in a coma following her trip to Pegasus but had no idea it could be bad enough that Buffy was asking Faith if she was dying or not. Seeing her face relax slight after getting an answer didn't do much for his concerns.

So why did he suddenly feel like he wanted his ex to be angry rather than the evil smile that was slowly forming on her lips.

"Seriously? You want _him_? Really?" Buffy asked, with no lack of glee in her voice. It sounded almost mischievous to him. "No, seriously I think it's an _absolutely_ great idea. " She eyed Riley then. "I honestly can't think of a _better_ response. No, do not worry about getting transport for him. Riley is right in front of me. I'll have him take Andrew to you." Her smile became more normal. "But I want daily reports Faith. That's non-negotiable. We either hear from you or we are going to come for you." Riley waited for her to speak again. "Good. I'll make sure he brings a care package from the girls. Stay safe Faith." She hung up the phone then and slowly took a seat back at the table, looking at Riley with a smirk on her face.

"What?" he dreaded to ask.

"Faith is out of isolation. She's convinced your superiors to bring one of our people to her as our own personal assurance that she's fine," Buffy replied. "You're going to bring him to her."

"Okay, sure," Riley said, still confused by the look on her face. "But why are grinning like that?"

Buffy had the cruel smile on her face. "Riley. You're going to spend hours on a plane with Andrew Wells, who has the specialty of annoying anyone he's around, regardless of whether he is trying to annoy you or not. By the time your flight is over, I guarantee you're going to want to punch out your Director for keeping your mouth shut for as long as you have."

The sad thing was, Riley actually believed what Buffy was saying.


End file.
